Christopher Plummer won the Screen
Actors Guild (SAG) Award for best supporting actor on Sunday for his
role in Beginners.
“I just can't tell you what fun I've
had being a member of the world's second oldest profession,” he
said in accepting the award. “Actors are gregarious and wacky are
they not? I love them dearly. When they honor you, it's like being
lit by the Holy Grail.”
Plummer said that co-star Ewan McGregor
“makes acting look so impossibly easy” in thanking him.
In the film now out on DVD, Oliver
(played by McGregor) tells the story of his father, Hal (Plummer),
who comes out gay at the age of 75. It is Plummer's first portrayal
of a gay man.
The role has also earned Plummer a
Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award. The three awards bolster
Plummer's chances of winning an Academy Award next month.
“Gay characters are human beings,”
he told the press after the Golden Globes. “We're all the exactly
the same. That's the reason I played it the way I did, not as a
caricature. They're a part off our society since the Egyptians, the
Greeks – it's part of the human condition.”
“I know there is a lot of anti-gay
sentiment in our society at the moment and I abhor it.”